Good Time Calculator

Estimate sentence-reduction credit and a target release date, by state.

Good Time Calculator

Access to Tracking and Calculation Resources

  • Incarcerated individuals: You receive periodic time updates through your institutional case manager or classification counselor, and official records reflect adjustments when minor or serious infractions occur.
  • Family members: Families do not get an independent online calculator to log into and run live math; instead, the incarcerated individual must share their official Department of Corrections case plan or Earned Release Date (ERD) updates sent through official correspondence.
  • Official reviews: You or your family can request a formal sentence and time-served audit directly from the correctional agency's records department if you believe an error occurred.
Sentence Details
Some states have different rules based on offense date
Life sentences have no finite day count, so a projected release date cannot be calculated. This calculator will tell you whether the state excludes life sentences from good time, but cannot produce a numeric result either way.
Most states use a single, fixed term. A small number of states (e.g. New York) use a minimum/maximum range instead, where different credits cap against different ends of that range.
Some states don't earn ANY good-time credit during a mandatory-minimum portion of a sentence — credit only starts accruing once time served exceeds this amount. Leave at 0 if none applies.
Some states apply different rules based on the number of prior violent convictions, not just whether one exists.
Some states have a "habitual offender" status triggered by prior felony convictions generally — separate from the violent-conviction count above, which only counts violent priors specifically.
A small number of states apply a different rate to drug offenses, separate from the violent-offense question above.
A small number of states exclude drug offenses from earned credit specifically when there's also a prior drug conviction.
A distinct legal category from "violent" in some states — a small number of states disqualify an otherwise-available drug-offense rate enhancement based on this specifically.
In a small number of states, "hard labor" is a specific legal term for state penitentiary/DOC incarceration, distinct from parish/county jail incarceration ("without hard labor"), and it changes which good-time rules apply entirely. If this doesn't apply to your state, leave the default selected.
A number of states have a separate, often simpler, good-time system for county jail sentences. If this doesn't apply to your state, leave the default selected.
A small number of states (e.g. Georgia) apply a special fixed rate to this narrow, specifically-defined misdemeanor category, regardless of offense date. If this doesn't apply to your state, leave the default selected.
Some states (e.g. Alabama's Class A felony, North Carolina's Class A/B felony, Oregon's "person felony") exclude the most severe offense category from good time entirely. States use different classification systems — this is an approximation of "the most severe category available," not a specific class letter.